One of the amazingly positive outcomes of the struggle to keep our state parks open the last couple of years is the growth of a true parks community. The people who use the parks stood up with their time, money and organizational skills to make sure that their favorite outdoor destination wasn’t on the chopping block.

The not-for-profit park advocacy group California State Parks Foundation is tapping into that community with its new Park Observation Program (POP). In essence, it’s an easy way for you to photograph and report maintenance and trail condition problems using your smartphone or computer with a promise of updates when the issue is addressed. There are more of us on the trails than there are park staff, making this a far more efficient way to catalogue issues so they can be prioritized and addressed.

The program is currently only available for state parks in the Santa Cruz District, but according to their Web site it “will soon expand to more state parks.”